::laughing:: I love the park reclamation idea! I also love kiddie pools as an easy watering system. A soaker hose costs $7.99 and a timer is maybe $10. Plus you have them for years. If you use the hose for top-watering it's way more fiddly and takes more daily monitoring than filling the pools does. But if you have the soaker and timer PLUS pools underneath, so the soaker fills the pools, it can be pretty low-maintenance. May not be worth the setup and initial tweaking, though, compared to just filling the pools by hand. BTW, don't FILL the pools :). your plants would drown. I cut holes in my pools about 2" from the bottom, which makes it easy to fill to that depth and lets excess water from rain drain out. In a humid climate, and with small containers, it's not impossible that soaker hoses without reservoirs, e.g. on the roof, could be made to work efficiently. It depends on your tolerance for messing with the system for the first few months :).

I haven't tried to grow the Gregg's Mistflower from seed, but have noticed the clumps can get bigger and be divided over time. I agree it's a good plant for butterflies. I also like the Turk's Cap. Then there's White Mistflower, Eupatorium havanense, which especially draws them in when fall comes. There's many native salvias that are good nectar plants, Salvia coccinea and Salvia greggi, for instance. Purple Horsemint, Monardia citriodora is one of my favorites here. And I've recently discovered Goldeneye, Viguiera dentata, which the butterflies love and it's xeriscape! Aromatic Aster, Symphotrichum oblongifolium is nice also. The only milkweeds that do very well here are the Tropical Milkweed (yes, not a Texas native, but native to Mexico, which is just across the Texas border, so many Texas native plant people include it) and Texas Milkweed, Asclepias texana (don't know if it would grow where you are, but it does well here). If there's a chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas nearby, they could probably help with what can actually grow in your area. I found a copy of Butterfly Gardening for the South recently to send to my daughter in Houston who is having a house built there. Very good book and has a lot of Texas natives! It seems to be out of print, so hard to find, but there might be copies in the libraries.

Stevia can be quite temperamental. It can die in what seems like perfect conditions for no reason at all except to spite you. Its saving grace is that sometimes it only pretends to die and will resurrect - sometimes taking up to a year to make up its mind to do it - so if that happens to you, don't give up on it, but keep giving the occasional drink to an apparently dead plant! Certainly, it will die (or die right back) if you allow it to flower. It's not a particularly fast grower, is very slow to get going in fact, and it doesn't spread. I've never, ever had any luck propagating from my plant, though I've tried many times, using seed I've collected and cuttings. The plant is climatically suited to climates from temperate to sub-tropical where temperatures range between 21-43C, with an average of 24°C, but it will also grow in the tropics, where it prefers shade and will also grow in cold climates with winter protection. Plants in the ground have been noted to take minimal frosts. It's dormant in winter and often loses its leaves, even here in the subtropics, which shows that it's really happiest in warmer climates. It likes regular water, but won't tolerate water-logged conditions. It can be a gangly plant, so it's a good idea to stake it to begin with, or to plant several plants close together. Once it's older, it can stand up quite nicely. In short - theoretically it should be an easy plant to grow, but in practice it presents quite a challenge. More detail (the theory part of it!): Propagate by seeds or by tip cuttings taken in summer, or root division in spring. Seeds are notoriously infertile and slow to germinate. Flowering usually occurs 54-104 days after transplanting. Plants in the ground have been noted to take minimal frosts. It is a somewhat temperamental plant and may be slow to grow at first. Even in ideal conditions, it is not uncommon for plants to die suddenly or to lose their leaves. As long as the roots are alive, the plant may regrow. Poor, loose, well drained soil is recommended. The plants need to be well-mulched so that surface feeder roots do not dry out. For gardeners in cold climates, it is recommended that plants be started in large pots so that the pot can be moved to a warm verandah in winter. In cold climates, the plant may go dormant to the ground. As stevia does not over-winter outdoors in freezing conditions, the roots are lifted in autumn and stored indoors in perlite or sand and then set outside again in spring. Stevia requires regular watering in dry periods but has poor tolerance to long waterlogging or to saline water or soils. In its natural habitat, the plant occurs naturally on acid soils of 4-5 pH but will grow well on soils up to 9 pH. Leaf yields can be increased with a moderate application of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilisers. Plants also respond well to liquid seaweed as a foliage spray applied fortnightly. As soon as the plant flowers, the leaf production slows down, so it is an advantage to nip off flower buds, to encourage further leaf development. If the plant is left to flower, the tip leaves take on a slightly bitter overtone. Plant will die if left go to flower, so it should be cut back repeatedly to prevent flowering.

You're right Iris but I think I know where Im going to plant everything. I'll try to take before and after pictures. I told Jay before, Im going to take a week off work, maybe two, to do all my prepping and planting. One week in spring, one in summer. Have to get all the other projects done too- stain the deck, fix a couple siding shingles, refinish a bathtub, a couple drainage and grading projects... just writing that down made me apprehensive haha.